When Bob Dylan recorded “My Back Pages” for the album ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN he was transitioning from folk artist to folk artist critic with his own career and his own songs directly in the cross-hairs of that critique.
The next album, BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, revealed a much more nuanced and mature understanding of human nature and the role of protest. These albums and others that followed went from being protest songs of injustices in world events to protest songs about conformity to false images and ideals of self, beginning with the his own role of being the “spokesperson of his generation.”
Dylan sings:
“Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps-
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps-
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow-
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth-
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull- I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow-
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach-
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow-
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard
When abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect.
Good and bad, I defined these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.”
So what does all of this have to do with Lent and the Gospel? A lot, I think. Doesn’t Dylan’s song resonant with these words: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul,” (Matthew 16:26) or “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)
Lent is a good time to reflect on how we may be living from a sense of self that is no longer real or meaningful for us. This can even be a religious sense of self that has become too self-conscious and rigid, holding on to patterns of thought and behavior that need to be examined and reassessed. But reassessed in the light of what? In the light of the Resurrection! I am challenged to look at my life with new eyes. Could it be that ‘I have become my own worst enemy in the instant that I preach’? Have ‘abstract threats, too noble to neglect, deceived me into thinking I have something to protect.’? Is what I’m protecting a false, complacent self that needs to learn how to stretch again and risk loving those I’d rather not love?
Easter calls me to integrity and I think this is what the Risen Life of Christ is all about: integrity. The promise our faith reveals is that Christ Is Risen, not has risen. I participate in the resurrection of Christ and in my own resurrection each time I step out of my comfort zone and say:
“Ah! I was so much older then!
I’m younger than that now!”
-Palmer
